


Catch and Release

by wafflelate



Category: Naruto
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Madara POV, Prompt: Chasing, Warring Clans Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: Madara's used to every mission havingsomecomplications, but this complication is a little more complicated than usual.





	Catch and Release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [A_Quiet_Place](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Quiet_Place/gifts).



> Hello! I woke up this morning super pumped to write more Naruto and thought I'd give this ship a shot. Thank you for requesting it and giving me the opportunity!
> 
> Thanks to Pepper, SQ, and teapot for betaing!

There are two kinds of clients who hire the Uchiha clan, in Madara's experience: 

  1. clients who don't want any trouble at all 
  2. clients who want as much trouble as possible for everyone who isn't them



The first kind of client hire the Uchiha because the Uchiha are a noble clan, in good standing with the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, known for their power, professionalism, and commitment. Clients that hire the Uchiha want the job done well, and fast, and they want it to be done by someone who will solve problems as they come up and then present an updated bill at the end of the job. They don't want to have to renegotiate in the middle of the job. 

The second kind of client hires the Uchiha because someone else has already hired the Senju, and even fat rich foreign merchants and catty noblewomen who'd faint at the sight of blood have heard about the endless ( _pointless_ ) Uchiha–Senju feud. 

Madara assumes that the Senju also have these two types of clients. He assumes this both because his father assures him that people ("Especially civilians, especially the kind of civilians who'd hire those Senju rats.") are very simple, but also because even when he's hired by Client Type #1, one or more Senju ninja will inevitably show up if the client or the clan hasn't been secretive enough about the job. 

On this latest mission, Madara gets halfway through his long, solitary, and very annoying delivery mission before Senju Hashirama comes out of nowhere and knocks him down. And not in a _dignified_ manner, either, with a kick to the head or a tripwire or Mokuton. No, Hashirama drops down from above like he's lunged off a tree branch and _tackles him_ like a kitten pouncing on an unwilling playmate. They're both sent rolling through the detritus of the forest, tumbling end-over-end like civilian acrobats. Madara catches the entire humiliating experience with his Sharingan, including the way the wind is knocked out of him by Hashirama's knee landing in his gut on their first flip. 

When they come to a rest, Madara is on his back, hands pinned at the wrist by Hashirama's hands, the package he's supposed to be delivering nowhere to be seen. Hashirama is sitting practically on his lap, leaning over him. His hair has grown out some since Madara last saw him, but he's still dressed like a disaster and grinning like an idiot. 

"Caught you!" Hashirama says cheerfully. His hands squeeze Madara's wrist in a way that is somehow more of a greeting than a threat. Maybe because it's not hard enough to bruise, maybe because Hashirama could definitely have killed him instead of tackling him, maybe just because it's _Hashirama_. 

Maybe — most likely — because Madara is a broken disastrous mess of an Uchiha who can't see a Senju when he looks at Hashirama's open expression. There's no enemy there, no threat, just a promise they haven't spoken of in years, one that lurks in Madara's chest like a fragile second heart, waiting to be broken. 

"Get off me," Madara hisses, but he doesn't struggle. He'd completely failed to escape Hashirama's hold on his way to landing in this position, and he's still winded from having one of Hashirama's unwieldy limbs slammed into his stomach. Better to bide his time before trying to make his escape. 

"But I've only just got you where I want you! We should catch up." 

An involuntary sound, half laughter and half outrage, works its way out of Madara's throat. "Don't mock me, Hashirama." 

" _Mock_ you?" Hashirama repeats, like the uncultured peasant he absolutely is. "Why would I be mocking you? What did I say that was mocking?" 

Madara's hands curl into fists — but he finds himself answering Hashirama honestly. "Enemies don't catch up like a pair of gossiping aunties." 

Hashirama's face falls. "No, don't say that! Enemies is such a bad word for it, people will think we really don't like each other." 

Terrible Uchiha or not, Madara is still too proud to actually ask _Do you really mean to imply you like me?_ but for a full thirty seconds it's on the tip of his tongue. 

"'Enemy' is the word for someone who's on the opposite side of a contract, and the Uchiha word for a _Senju_ ," Madara says. He shifts uncomfortably under Hashirama, wondering if it's time to attempt his escape. 

"Enemy!" Hashirama gasps. "There's that word again!" 

Hashirama sounds like one of the overwrought actresses the Daimyo's wife loves to sponsor, except none of them would deign to play a character that repeats dialogue so often. Madara would tell him so, except that he's immediately distracted by Hashirama letting go of his wrists. 

Madara bucks his hips, twists his body, and his hands unfurl in preparation for a jutsu, any jutsu, anything to make Hashirama get off of him and back away, but Hashirama is faster; before Madara can get his hands even halfway to a seal, Hashirama has his hands clasped together in that ridiculously simple hand seal and two tendrils of Mokuton wood burst out of the ground. 

In the Uchiha archives, there are illustrations of what the Mokuton can do to a person, and Madara has looked at all of them because his father had ordered him to do so. Hashirama could impale him, pin him to the ground through either shoulder with two sharp vines. He could tear Madara limb from limb. He could encase Madara completely — grow a tree around him and leave him to suffocate, his corpse undiscovered until someone fells the tree for lumber. 

Heart thundering in his chest, Madara finds that Hashirama has grown the wood in the shape of hands, and the wooden fingers have interlaced his own, and now his hands are gently pinned to the ground by warm wood that prevents him from so much as making a fist, let alone hand seals. Hashirama has sat up, still kneeling over Madara, using his now-free hands to brush bits of leaves and small twigs from where they've caught themselves on his clothes. 

All Madara's thrashing around has managed to accomplish is a slight repositioning exactly where and how Hashirama is straddling him. And, his own hair is now in his face. Great. 

"I don't want to fight you," Hashirama says absently, as his hands move from brushing his own clothes off to brushing off Madara's. "I'm not even under a contract, I just wanted to say hello." His hands sweep back and forth over Madara's clothes in short, impersonal bursts at first, but slowly they still, become more careful. At last they come to rest on the sides of Madara's ribcage, where they must feel the way Madara's breath has hitched and stuttered, if not the frantic nature of his pulse. 

Can Hashirama can feel that delicate glass heart under his skin? Does Hashirama have one of his own, still? 

"You're scared." Hashirama says the words slowly, like they're something strange he has to find the shape of. His hands splay out across Madara's torso for a moment, still and careful like he's trying to show they're not being used for anything dangerous. 

"Don't be scared," Hashirama commands, as gentle as his hands. "You're not my enemy." 

"Then what am I?" Madara asks, and hates the strangled way the question comes out. Hoarse and desperate, clumsy and hopeful. 

_You have the heart of an idiot_ , Izuna likes to tell him. _Don't care so much about what people think. Focus on what they might do to you_. 

Hashirama grins down at him. "You're my friend, and you can trust me." 

Madara doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing, just looking up at Hashirama with wide eyes, still trying to come down off the terrifying rush of having Hashirama's Mokuton come at him in an already compromising position. 

For a few moments his hands move with Madara's chest as Madara breathes, and then when Madara doesn't immediately calm down his hands start moving in calming circles, damningly perfect in their pressure and pace even through the thick indigo-dyed fabric of Madara's mantle, moving up slowly across his chest to his collarbone and shoulders, by which time Madara finds his breathing has evened out and his breath is stuttering for an entirely different reason. 

It's kind of annoying that it worked, because Madara has definitely seen civilian merchants use the exact same technique on their spooked horses. And damn Hashirama, because as soon Madara decides he doesn't want him to stop, he _does_. 

"There, see? We're okay," Hashirama says. He's leaning forward now, one hand on the ground next to Madara's head, the other hand coming up to brush the hair from Madara's face. 

"You're really not on a mission?" Madara asks, grasping for the facts of the situation. 

"On my way back from one." In the crisp gaze of Madara's Sharingan, Hashirama's hand sparks and glows with chakra. Not even enough for a jutsu of any kind, not even worth trying to flinch back from it. Madara watches it as it sweeps his hair back where it belongs and then comes away covered in detritus that Madara's hair must have picked up from his tumble across the forest floor earlier. 

Madara holds tight to the Mokuton hands pinning him down and manages to say, "Thank you," and even means it. 

"Well, it _is_ my fault that your hair is so messed up," Hashirama admits. He leans closer, impossibly, both of his hands on the ground, then both elbows. Hashirama's body is warm, almost hot, and covering him practically from thigh to shoulder. His ankles even cross Madara's, now, completing what was once a sloppy pin but now no longer feels dangerous. 

"You made me drop my parcel, too," Madara reminds him. 

Hashirama glances around a little. "Was it fragile?" 

"Maybe," Madara says, carefully. "You've definitely put me behind schedule." 

"I didn't mean to! I've just missed you. I couldn't just do _nothing_ when I saw you." 

That — that's exactly what Madara needs to hear, exactly the kind of words he'll turn over in his head, awed, finding new facets to appreciate every time. He and his damn idiot's heart want more. 

"Missed me?" Madara asks (and damn Hashirama for apparently infecting him with the habit of repeating words that don't need clarification) to buy time to grope for what else to say. Uncharacteristically, he finds himself stuttering over the question he wants to ask, uncertain: "Do you—do you think about—" 

"I think about you _every day_ ," Hashirama interjects. His eyes are bright and shining, but Madara's hopes start to fall. 

"I meant," Madara says, words still trying to halt awkwardly in his mouth and trap themselves behind his teeth. 

Earnestly, Hashirama urges, "You can tell me. What did you mean?" 

"The village." 

For the first time in this entire conversation _Hashirama_ is the one still and surprised. Like a statue, like someone caught in the Nara's shadow technique. 

"Hidden in the leaves," Madara adds, not because he needs to say it but because it seems like Hashirama need to hear it. 

"Yes," Hashirama answers in a rush, like Madara might take the question back if he keeps silent. "Of course. More than every day. All the time." 

"I think about it when I look at children. And every time I look at my brother." Madara pauses. "Every time I look at _your_ brother." 

Hashirama laughs; an outpouring of relief that shakes his whole frame, that Madara feels all over and especially in his gut. Somehow, the vibration of Hashirama's chuckles is the most intimate thing he's ever felt. 

"I told you," Hashirama says. "Not enemies." 

"Not enemies," Madara agrees. And, experimentally, adjusts his hips in a manner that is _absolutely not_ meant to help him escape. 

Hashirama adjusts right back, seemingly without thinking about it, breathing out a startled, " _Oh_ ," and then ducking his head towards Madara's, suddenly, into a clumsy kiss. 

Madara's never kissed anyone before, never even really thought about it, and he knows that he's probably at least twice as clumsy as Hashirama is in return, but it's enjoyable anyway. Madara is pretty sure that kissing is like killing — you can make up for most of what you don't know with enthusiasm, even if real skill only comes with practice. 

Hopefully peace will be like that, too. 

When they break apart, they look at each other for a few moments, so closely their noses almost touch. This is the first chance Madara has ever had to memorize Hashirama's eyelashes and irises. He keeps his eyes open and focused when Hashirama's gaze drifts down to his lips, when Hashirama's eyes flutter shut, when he blinks. There are tiny constellations of freckles on Hashirama's eyelids, and Madara will never, ever forget them. 

"Wow," Hashirama says, his breath puffing out of his mouth so close Madara feels it on his face. 

"Are you going to let me go now?" Madara asks. 

"Oh," Hashirama says nervously. He sits up so abruptly that Madara feels a definite draft. 

Madara wiggles his fingers — still trapped in the grasp of the wooden hands pinning his hands to the forest floor — at Hashirama. 

" _Oh_ ," Hashirama repeats, sounding kind of agonized this time. "Sorry, sorry, I — I've had you trapped, oh no." He presses his hands together in the briefest, most worthless of hand seals and the wooden hands release Madara and shrink away, back into the ground, ungrown by Hashirama just as fast as they'd been grown in the first place. 

"Stop being an idiot," Madara demands. He brushes dirt off the back of his hands as he sits up and then yanks Hashirama forward by the front of his shirt into another kiss. 

He's going to be really, really late on his delivery mission, but at least he can honestly blame it on Senju interception. 


End file.
